Heli-Expo: Air Force CVLSP Competition - Yes or No?

Heli-Expo: Air Force CVLSP Competition - Yes or No?: "

Mixed messages from the U.S. Air Force on its plans to buy 205 off-the-shelf helicopters for ICBM-field security and executive transport have European manufacturers concerned they could be cut out of the competition, writes Amy Butler.

AgustaWestland and Eurocopter, through EADS North America, are keeping a sharp eye on the $3 billion Common Vertical Lift Support Program (CVLSP) to replace the Air Force’s ageing fleet of Bell UH-1Ns.

In early February the head of Air Force Global Strike Command, Lt. Gen. James Kowalski, said the Air Force is leaning toward bypassing a competition and sole-sourcing CVLSP, with Sikorsky’s HH-60M Black Hawk as the top contender.

A directed procurement would be a major blow to AgustaWestland, which is planning to offer a version of its commercial AW139, and to EADS, which would propose a helicopter from Eurocopter’s product line.


AW139M for CVLSP. (Photo: AgustaWestland)

Kowalski said the Air Force is proposing using the Economy Act - which allows the government to take unconventional actions to balance the federal budget - to bypass a competition and quickly field helicopters to satisfy an urgent need in place since 1996.

Industry officials immediately questioned the strategy. “To use the fact that [the Air Force] waited this long as a justification for bypassing a competition doesn’t make sense,” said one official on background.

Use of the Economy Act to justify the sole-source purchase of helicopters is only one of a number of options under consideration for CVLSP, stressed David Van Buren, the Air Force’s senior acquisition official, at a conference in Washington, DC., on Mar. 1.

Van Buren said his recommendations are expected by the end of the month. The Air Force has requested funding for the first two CVLSP helicopters in the fiscal 2012 budget request sent to Congress in February.


UH-1N. (Photo: US Air Force)

“We are aware of the funding profile for CVLSP and the desired schedule and we can meet or exceed the [Air Force’s] schedule for deliveries,” says Dan Hill, who handles business development at AgustaWestland.

“We would encourage them to go ahead and have the competition because we don’t think it will interfere with [the] urgent and compelling need for the CVLSP fleet,” he says.

The U.S. Air Force already is buying HH-60Ms to replace combat search-and-rescue HH-60Gs lost in combat and is proposing to continue buying helicopters from Sikorsky rather than restage the previously terminated CSAR-X competition.

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